Detecting design or intent in nature

[watchamadoodle]

When people see design or the guiding hand of God in something, how would we define that?

Someone here gave us a Matt Dillahunty explanation about the necessity of contrasting nature to determine design. So I'm not gonna write on that. Instead I want to make an argument against the teleology of nature.

1) Nature has goals or nature does not have goals.
2) There have been many creatures that have come into existence.
3) There have been many creatures that have since become extinct.
4) Extinction has no purpose.

Therefore nature has no goals.

I'm not sure about that argument.

Sometimes we design special tools, jigs, scaffolds, etc. when building something. Those things get discarded after we are done just like species of life go extinct, but that doesn't mean they weren't serving a goal.

Also look at airplane designs. Cloth and canvas biplanes are extinct, but they were a stepping stone that served a goal. Or sometimes we build prototype airplanes that are not practical, but they allow us to test an idea.

Of course human designs (like airplanes) are not that different from the evolution of life. Most new designs are just a slight evolution of old designs. Designs reproduce and go extinct partly in response to their effectiveness in the environment at the time.

So the whole issue of distinguishing intelligent design from evolution is based on the assumption that they are fundamentally different when actually they aren't so different?